Adora forced a laugh, hoped it sounded genuine in its amusement. “I am not interested in the sordid details of your indiscretions, you miserable excuse for a priest. Errol is the noblest man in the kingdom, despite the treatment he received at your hands. Since there seems to be no such quality within you, Pater Antil, I can only conclude that his mother must have been a woman of extraordinary depth. I adjure you, as your sovereign, tell me everything you can recollect or surmise about her in as plain and honest a fashion as you can contrive. Leave nothing out.”
His mouth gaped as she spoke, stretching in horror by the time she was done. “You cannot ask that of me. You cannot.”
She slowed her horse and leaned a little toward him, her gaze burning with all the love and passion for Errol she held. “You are quite right, Pater. I do not ask it; I demand it.”
He shook, but whether he struggled with her command or himself she could not tell. His head turned from her with a jerk, so when he spoke she had to strain to hear him. “Where shall I begin, Your Highness?”
To his credit, he did not spit her title like an epithet as he had so often in the past.
An unexpected twinge of pity for his self-loathing arose, moved her to speak softly. “What was her name?”
“Candide,” Antil said. He stared at the reins in his hands. “And she fit it. She was sweet and pure.”
“Hardly that,” Adora observed softly, “if she would knowingly bed a priest.”
She had the impression of movement, only that, before Antil’s open hand connected with her face, the slap loud in her ears. Stunned past anger she stared at him, at the rage that twisted his features.
“You may kill me, Your Highness, but I will not suffer your insults of Candide. She was perfect in ways you could never hope to approach.” His voice rose until he screamed as tears bunched in his eyes. “She burned like a bonfire on a moonless night until she died, was killed giving birth to that filth you say you love.” He panted, defying her. “She loved me!”
Adora rubbed her cheek. He had pulled the blow. Sevra and her minions had given her worse. Insight flared in her, and she understood Antil. She didn’t like him any better—far from it; he remained contemptible—but now she knew how to approach him.
But that would have to wait. Too many people had seen him strike her. Rokha and Waterson rode toward them with swords drawn. Even Liam had slowed to turn, unhooking his short bow and nudging his horse to ride back to her.
She sighed. He deserved death, but until Illustra found its king, the burden of mercy belonged to her. She jerked her reins toward Antil with her left hand. The priest gaped at her in surprise as she drew her sword and clubbed him across the temple as hard as she could. The shock jolted her arm, sending pain shooting though her elbow.
Antil’s eyes rolled and he toppled from his saddle.
Her rescue party stopped in front of her.
Waterson sheathed his sword, glanced at the dimming sky overhead. “You have an unusual way of selecting campsites, Your Highness.”
Rokha dismounted and sauntered over to stand at Antil’s unconscious form. “I can pour some water on him, if you’d like to continue your conversation.”
Adora nodded. Tired as he made her, she needed to verify her insight. It would be easier to do so now, while Antil’s emotions were still raw and unbalanced. Later, he might manage to restore the judgmental stoicism he wore like a cloak.
He spluttered and coughed as he woke to Rokha’s drenching. When he cleared his eyes, Adora stood waiting for him, her sword clenched in her hand, ready to strike again. Liam sat his horse behind her, short bow at the ready.
She took a deep breath and began, “Do not think to escape my questions by forcing me to kill you, priest. I have defeated and killed men who thought me defenseless. I have no reservations against beating you within a breath of life for your insolence.”
He shook water from his hair. “What else do you want to know, Princess?” He growled the words, but underneath he sounded tired, defeated.
“When did you start blaming a child for a woman’s death?”
He barked a laugh, and at first she thought he would deny the accusation in her question, but when he looked at her, his reserve had given way to sardonic admission. He gave her a condescending bow from his seat on the ground.
“Stupid question. When she died, of course.”
Angered at his disrespect, she searched for a way to strike back, to keep him off balance. “Candide’s death must have been convenient for you. You would have been struck from the priesthood otherwise.”
Her arrow failed to find its mark. “I’d planned to leave the campaign. Traveling with Prince Jaclin offered a means to be paid while we looked for a place far enough from our families to hide.” He looked at her as if daring her to insult him further. “Months before we came to Callowford, we’d snuck from Jaclin’s column to be married by the priest of a small village in Gascony. We liked Callowford. Our plans were to simply let Jaclin and his men leave us behind.”
Something was not right; this was not the story she’d heard. “Your words have the sound of truth behind them, priest, but perhaps you could explain why your tale differs from the one you told Martin Arwitten?”
Antil regarded her from eyes narrowed to slits. “Do I owe the truth to a man who would strike me?”
Adora nodded, even as she ignored the irony in Antil’s protest. “Do you owe the truth to me?”
He smiled, but his eyes mocked her. “Of course, Your Highness, I am your confessor, am I not?”
He tired her with his semantics, but she pressed forward, hoping to find some scrap of knowledge that would help Errol. “But you didn’t kill the child.”
Antil ran his tongue over his teeth and spat a piece of grass into the dirt. “I’m not a murderer, Princess. I gave the babe to Warrel.” He laughed. “Beware, Your Highness. The boy is a curse. Everyone around him dies. Warrel’s wife wasted away five years after he came to them. Then Warrel was crushed by stone.” He smiled. “Perhaps you would do best to avoid him.”
Behind, she heard Liam’s growl. Even his patience was running low. She ground her teeth until her jaws ached. “Say his name.”
He laughed at her. He laughed!
“I have been saying his name . . . Princess. Every time I speak of him as a curse or filth, I name him.”
Rokha, still and unseen by Antil, delivered a savage uppercut to the priest’s chin, the sound of his jaws meeting a sharp retort in the evening air. She bowed to Adora, her movements formal. “Your Highness, I crave your pardon for interrupting your conversation.”
Adora nodded and gestured with one hand to tell Rokha her apology was unnecessary. Antil lay like discarded cloth on the ground.
“What will you do with him?” Rokha asked.
She rolled each shoulder, trying to shed the weight of her responsibility. “What had to be done since the moment we found him: take him to Errol.” She forced the next words past a lump in her throat. “If he still lives.”
“Errol lives,” Liam said.
But when Adora turned to inquire how he knew such a thing, the captain of the watch had already moved away.
30
Confluence
MARTIN RODE AT ABLAJIN’S SIDE with Luis and Cruk trailing close behind. Since leaving the steppes, Cruk had encased himself in silence. He spoke seldom, but he looked often at the phalanx of Ablajin’s men, clustered in a tight mass as they rode. Many times Martin could see his eyes darting, working back and forth, counting the men and their horses, as if trying to multiply their number by sheer force of will.
When the mountain range that ran south from the Soeden Strait down the Gascony border came into view, Cruk nudged his horse into a canter. He stopped next to Ablajin and gave an uncomfortable-sounding grunt.
Ablajin nodded to acknowledge his presence.
“There’s going to be trouble,” Cruk said.
The Morgol leader’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and Ma
rtin winced. No one would ever accuse Cruk of being diplomatic.
“How so, Captain?” Ablajin asked.
Cruk gestured first at the force behind them and then forward toward the mountains. “Deploying your men to fight here is risky. It’s a hard thing to ask a man to fight his countrymen, harder still if they’re outnumbered twenty to one.”
The Morgol chieftain nodded. “Holy Martin tells me you are the foremost tactician in the kingdom. I see he is correct, yet there is much about my people that you do not know. From the moment my clan allowed me to live after I killed Oorgat, they declared themselves enemies of our nation.”
Cruk nodded. “Yet having a common enemy does not make them our ally. If I were the opposing commander, I would offer them a battlefield amnesty and kill them later.”
Martin saw Ablajin’s eyes widen as he turned to face him. “Your pardon, Martin, I underestimated the vision of your captain. Such a thing as he suggests would be unholy to the chieftains, but the treachery of the theurgists has no boundaries.”
“What do you propose, Captain?”
“Once we pass through the gap into the Arryth, take your men south to the border between Gascony and Talia to battle against the Merakhi. I will send men with you to smooth the journey.”
“A part of me had hoped to repay the theurgists in person for their treachery.” Ablajin gave a somber nod. “But your plan is for the best.” The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “How will you fight them, those people who were known to me?”
Martin understood. Ablajin asked for a measure of trust in return.
“Bows and pikes,” Cruk said. “Men with longbows will cover squadrons of pikemen. If we can narrow the gaps, light cavalry won’t stand a chance, especially fighting uphill.”
Ablajin nodded. “It is a good plan. A Morgol’s love for his horse will make him hesitate to charge a line of men with the long spears. Grouped together, they will make easy targets.”
Martin looked to see Ablajin’s gaze upon him, the brown eyes serious, his tone formal. “I would ask a boon for my people, holy Martin.”
“If I can grant it, I will, Chieftain Ablajin.”
“Provide a place for the women and children of the clan if your battle is won. They will awake to a different world, and the steppes may be closed to them.”
Martin bowed. “I will do everything in my power to make it so. They will be honored members of the kingdom, Chieftain Ablajin.”
Two days later they rode through one of the gaps in the mountain chain that circled the Arryth, the fertile region of Illustra where generations of farmers had fed the kingdom everything from wheat to wine. Martin, his elementary education in warfare reawakened, could only stare at the hills sloping up and away from him on each side. He shuddered. Too wide. The gap, every gap opening west to Illustra’s heart, offered too much access.
He pointed. “Will we have enough men to hold them?
Cruk roused from his inspection of the road ahead to spare a brief glance for their immediate surroundings. Owen rode in front of the watchman, snuggled into one burly arm, snoring softly. Cruk paused, his stare growing distant. “No.”
Martin waited, but the captain seemed uncompelled to add anything further.
“How long can we hold?”
Cruk met his question with frank assessment. “Men can hold for a long time, Pater, if they know what they’re holding for and have some hope of living.” His hand idly stroked Owen’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “How much time will you need?”
Cruk’s question hit him like an accusation from Deas. He didn’t know. Again the thought came to him that there might not be an answer, that he and Luis and all the rest of Illustra were living on numbered breaths. He shook his head. No. The herbwomen had said there was a way.
But if they’d been Deas’s chosen, the heads of the solis, why hadn’t Deas simply told them what that way was? He laughed at the irony. Twice he’d been elevated to the red of the Judica, and yet he craved nothing more than another scrap of reassurance from two dead herbwomen.
“There may not be enough time,” he said to Cruk.
The captain’s mouth pulled to one side. It was hard to tell whether he was grimacing or grinning. “Every now and then I’d appreciate it if you would offer an evasion or two. You have a nasty habit of telling a man the unvarnished truth.”
The expression slipped, then disappeared. “I heard you with the secondus. If one of them has to die to save the kingdom, there’s a simple way to guarantee Illustra’s safety.”
Martin held up a hand, but Cruk ignored the plea.
“Send them both out to fight.”
A breeze, channeled by the hills, lifted a stray lock of his hair as it caressed his face. On the surface, Cruk’s solution offered a way for the kingdom to survive, but a foreboding grew in him as he considered the idea. The herbwomen had said one of them must die. That could only mean one of them had to live. But to what end? Neither Errol nor Liam had children. No matter which of them died, there would be no heir to maintain the barrier bought by the sacrifice.
He tasted Luis’s despair. Cruk looked at him, waiting for an answer, but there was none to give.
They crested a rise, and the gap into the Arryth snapped into focus. Lines of men working on fortifications appeared. The sound of engineers calling out instructions drifted to them.
“Praise Deas,” Cruk said. “Somebody at least had enough sense to begin preparations while we were gone.”
The clatter of weapons startled Martin, and he turned his head to see workmen turned soldiers. Cruk chuckled. “Should have expected that, I suppose. Thousands of Morgols are bound to make anyone nervous.” He turned to call to Ablajin. “Chieftain, would you have your men wait? I think we need to make some introductions.”
A detachment of guards broke away from the squadron guarding the gap and rode toward them at an easy canter. When they neared, the detachment split into two groups: one composed of watchmen and irregulars, the other made up of grim-faced church guards in red livery. The church soldiers had weapons drawn, despite Martin and Cruk’s presence at the head of the column.
Cruk muttered under his breath. “Not good.” He pointed. “We’ve got a problem, Pater. Those church soldiers seemed to be more intent on you than the Morgols. Who have you annoyed now?”
“It could be almost anyone,” Luis quipped.
Martin noted the soldiers in red hardly spared a glance for the twenty thousand Morgol warriors spread before them. Their attention clearly seemed centered on Martin. They came at him in an arc, hemming him in.
“I think this would be a good time for you to use some of your fabled oratory, Martin,” Luis said. “They look very serious.”
Cruk grunted as he adjusted Owen, who still slept tucked within his arm. “I’ve noticed a man with bared steel has a hard time hearing.”
Ablajin nodded toward the approaching guards. “I will order my men to come to your aid if you ask it, holy Martin, but would not spilling kingdom blood jeopardize our alliance?”
Martin exhaled. “It would. Something must have happened within the Judica.” At his side, Luis made a sound halfway between a sigh and agreement.
“At least they haven’t put arrows to bowstrings,” Cruk said. Martin nodded, but the edges of those swords appeared very keen.
At ten paces the church guard detachment stopped. Its leader, a blond-haired captain with a beard and mustache that blurred the scar running through his sharp Gascon features, pointed his sword at Martin.
“I adjure you by the authority given me by the Grand Judica, are you Martin Arwitten?”
The absence of the title of pater, or even priest, could not bode well. “I am.”
The sword returned to attention but not to its sheath. “Martin Arwitten, I am Captain Geraud. I am commanded to conduct you to the Grand Judica in haste. There you will answer for your deeds and serve whatever penance or penalty Deas and the Grand Judica deem fit to expunge your debt.”
<
br /> “Captain,” Luis said, “does your charge include any others?”
The captain shook his head.
A trace of cold threaded its way across Martin’s skin. The Grand Judica, the church guard had said. Not the archbenefice. “Who signed the writ?”
“Benefices Kell and Kerran.”
He struggled to pull air into his lungs. “What of Archbenefice Canon?”
The guard blinked twice. “The archbenefice is dead.”
Martin bowed his head and recited the panikhida. When he looked up he saw Cruk speaking with the detachment of watchmen and irregulars. Owen was now awake but still sat in the saddle in front of Cruk. A bluff-faced lieutenant nodded, moving with the brusque motions of one who feared displeasing a superior.
When Cruk returned to Martin’s side, Ablajin was there to meet him.
He pointed to Owen. “What will be done with the child?”
Cruk stiffened. “I will see to the boy.”
Ablajin nodded but raised a hand. “I would like to adopt Owen into my household. Among my people, he is already considered a man for saving his horse.”
Martin put his hand on Cruk’s arm, drawing the captain’s ire to himself, but he refused to acknowledge the anger in his gaze. “Owen will need a family, Captain. And if the kingdom survives, it will need men who can speak to both peoples.”
Cruk’s internal struggle played across the lines of his face. For a moment it appeared as though his long history of stoic resolve would collapse. Tremors worked through his cheeks as his mouth twisted, framing objections he never uttered.
He lifted Owen and turned him so that they sat face-to-face. Cruk rested a scarred hand on top of the boy’s windblown thatch of hair. “Owen, I have to go places that won’t be safe for you. Would you like to live with the chieftain’s clan and learn how to take care of horses?”
The boy’s face brightened, but he may have sensed a portion of Cruk’s struggle. He didn’t speak. His nod appeared to tear Cruk’s heart from his chest.
A Draw of Kings Page 31